Small Farmers are the Answer

Three-quarters of the world’s poorest people directly depend on small plots of farmland for food and income, yet they often do not have access to the right resources in order to be successful. If provided with the right tools and extension services, these small scale farmers could grow more and sell more food, feed their families, send their children to school and improve their livelihoods.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has created a challenge to encourage investment in small holder farmers in the developing world as a means of reducing global hunger and poverty. Through the use of visual media, the Foundation is challenging individuals and organizations to show the world how small scale farmers are growing more, earning more, and gaining access to more markets, and how investing in them is good for the world as a whole.

Click here to find out more about the challenge and how you can participate!

Here is Nourishing the Planet’s entry for the challenge. It is a photo essay of 15 innovations that are helping small scale farmers improve their food security and better their livelihoods.

Get the flash player here: http://www.adobe.com/flashplayer

To purchase your own copy of State of the World 2011: Innovations that Nourish the Planet, please click HERE. And to watch the one minute book trailer, click HERE.